Bush's Travels Considered, Compared To Past Leaders
Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times, 12/06/04
In between appointing new cabinet members, President Bush did a speedy 25-hour drop-by in Canada last week. It was a reminder that Mr. Bush travels as aerobically as he and his father play golf, and that a man whose critics called him an accidental president in his first term is showing clear signs that he will remain an accidental tourist in his second.
Mr. Bush never lingers at much of anything, but he really doesn't linger in museums and at historical sites. On Tuesday in Quebec, the president spent only 30 minutes at the National Archives of Canada, where he efficiently gazed at portraits of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 2002, Mr. Bush spent only 30 minutes at the Great Wall of China, which he visited on the way to the airport. In 2003, during a six-day trip to Africa, he spent 15 minutes at the Slave House on Goree Island in Senegal, which is said to have been the holding pen and departure point for as many as a million slaves who were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.
He spent only 60 minutes at a game park in Botswana, a country he visited for a total of six hours.
The president has even less patience with elaborate welcoming ceremonies and official dinners on foreign trips. ''He'll usually get on the plane and jokingly say, 'Thank you, Condi, I enjoyed that,''' said a Bush aide, who asked not to be identified because the president's remarks reflected impatience with his job. He was referring to Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and presidential minder.
In contrast, President Bill Clinton had to be dragged out of overseas tourist attractions. In 1998, which was not incidentally the year of Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton spent 12 full days in Africa, 2 of them at a game park in Botswana. Mr. Clinton also had a habit of squeezing in visits to cultural sites even if his schedule was tight, like an 11 p.m. tour he took of the Prado in Madrid.
And yet it turns out that in their first terms, Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton spent nearly the same amount of time overseas. Mr. Bush traveled abroad for 74 days, Mr. Clinton for 80. (The numbers come from Mark Knoller of CBS News, whose statistics are now sometimes used by the White House.) It was only in his second term that Mr. Clinton became peripatetic. From 1997 through 2000, he spent a total of 170 days abroad, which is either a record or close.
It seems unlikely that Mr. Bush will spend that kind of time overseas in his second term, although he has already announced that he will travel to Europe in February to try to soothe the anger remaining over the Iraq war. But if history is any guide, Mr. Bush will make more trips abroad in his second four years than he did in his first four.
''The normal pattern is that presidents invest much of their initial energy on the domestic side, but as the domestic agenda becomes less intense and their power wanes at home, they turn very quickly overseas, because that's where they retain enormous authority as commander in chief,'' said David R. Gergen, a professor of public service at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a veteran of the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton White Houses.
Mr. Bush, whose first four years were dominated by foreign policy, may prove the exception as he tries over the next 18 months to push his domestic priority, an overhaul of Social Security, through Congress. But by 2007 and 2008 he will be a lame duck at a time when he is certain to face pressure from foreign leaders asking to see him before he leaves office.
''These requests start piling up and you're accused of neglecting your international responsibilities and it's just inevitable that you begin to travel more,'' Mr. Gergen said.
Mr. Bush's advisers say the president doesn't meander on foreign trips for three reasons: his security apparatus puts a huge strain on the countries he visits, American taxpayers are footing the bill and presidents don't waste time.
Historians note that other modern presidents have punched their tickets at foreign tourist attractions and moved on. When President Jimmy Carter met with Leonid I. Brezhnev for arms control talks in Vienna in 1979, the two had to make a nod to the local culture and go to the opera or risk insulting their host city, which the Soviet leader may have done anyway.
''Carter had the libretto and went over it with an intensity as it was being sung, and Brezhnev fell asleep,'' said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian.
Mr. Clinton did plenty of racing through foreign countries himself. In his first term, on the way back from Kuwait to Washington, he stopped in Morocco long enough to meet with the king at 2 a.m., then jumped back on Air Force One.
A half-century earlier, Winston Churchill persuaded Franklin D. Roosevelt after the conference in Casablanca that he could not come all the way to Morocco without seeing the sunset with him in Marrakesh. So at the height of World War II, Roosevelt lingered for two more days, a decision unthinkable now.
''The president likes a clean, tight schedule,'' the Bush aide said. ''If we have 10 or 15 minutes allotted for a greeting and it's only supposed to take 5, somebody will say, 'Hey, why's that in there?'''
In between appointing new cabinet members, President Bush did a speedy 25-hour drop-by in Canada last week. It was a reminder that Mr. Bush travels as aerobically as he and his father play golf, and that a man whose critics called him an accidental president in his first term is showing clear signs that he will remain an accidental tourist in his second.
Mr. Bush never lingers at much of anything, but he really doesn't linger in museums and at historical sites. On Tuesday in Quebec, the president spent only 30 minutes at the National Archives of Canada, where he efficiently gazed at portraits of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In 2002, Mr. Bush spent only 30 minutes at the Great Wall of China, which he visited on the way to the airport. In 2003, during a six-day trip to Africa, he spent 15 minutes at the Slave House on Goree Island in Senegal, which is said to have been the holding pen and departure point for as many as a million slaves who were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.
He spent only 60 minutes at a game park in Botswana, a country he visited for a total of six hours.
The president has even less patience with elaborate welcoming ceremonies and official dinners on foreign trips. ''He'll usually get on the plane and jokingly say, 'Thank you, Condi, I enjoyed that,''' said a Bush aide, who asked not to be identified because the president's remarks reflected impatience with his job. He was referring to Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser and presidential minder.
In contrast, President Bill Clinton had to be dragged out of overseas tourist attractions. In 1998, which was not incidentally the year of Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton spent 12 full days in Africa, 2 of them at a game park in Botswana. Mr. Clinton also had a habit of squeezing in visits to cultural sites even if his schedule was tight, like an 11 p.m. tour he took of the Prado in Madrid.
And yet it turns out that in their first terms, Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton spent nearly the same amount of time overseas. Mr. Bush traveled abroad for 74 days, Mr. Clinton for 80. (The numbers come from Mark Knoller of CBS News, whose statistics are now sometimes used by the White House.) It was only in his second term that Mr. Clinton became peripatetic. From 1997 through 2000, he spent a total of 170 days abroad, which is either a record or close.
It seems unlikely that Mr. Bush will spend that kind of time overseas in his second term, although he has already announced that he will travel to Europe in February to try to soothe the anger remaining over the Iraq war. But if history is any guide, Mr. Bush will make more trips abroad in his second four years than he did in his first four.
''The normal pattern is that presidents invest much of their initial energy on the domestic side, but as the domestic agenda becomes less intense and their power wanes at home, they turn very quickly overseas, because that's where they retain enormous authority as commander in chief,'' said David R. Gergen, a professor of public service at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and a veteran of the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton White Houses.
Mr. Bush, whose first four years were dominated by foreign policy, may prove the exception as he tries over the next 18 months to push his domestic priority, an overhaul of Social Security, through Congress. But by 2007 and 2008 he will be a lame duck at a time when he is certain to face pressure from foreign leaders asking to see him before he leaves office.
''These requests start piling up and you're accused of neglecting your international responsibilities and it's just inevitable that you begin to travel more,'' Mr. Gergen said.
Mr. Bush's advisers say the president doesn't meander on foreign trips for three reasons: his security apparatus puts a huge strain on the countries he visits, American taxpayers are footing the bill and presidents don't waste time.
Historians note that other modern presidents have punched their tickets at foreign tourist attractions and moved on. When President Jimmy Carter met with Leonid I. Brezhnev for arms control talks in Vienna in 1979, the two had to make a nod to the local culture and go to the opera or risk insulting their host city, which the Soviet leader may have done anyway.
''Carter had the libretto and went over it with an intensity as it was being sung, and Brezhnev fell asleep,'' said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian.
Mr. Clinton did plenty of racing through foreign countries himself. In his first term, on the way back from Kuwait to Washington, he stopped in Morocco long enough to meet with the king at 2 a.m., then jumped back on Air Force One.
A half-century earlier, Winston Churchill persuaded Franklin D. Roosevelt after the conference in Casablanca that he could not come all the way to Morocco without seeing the sunset with him in Marrakesh. So at the height of World War II, Roosevelt lingered for two more days, a decision unthinkable now.
''The president likes a clean, tight schedule,'' the Bush aide said. ''If we have 10 or 15 minutes allotted for a greeting and it's only supposed to take 5, somebody will say, 'Hey, why's that in there?'''